Vol. 4 - Growth - Chapter 10

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Selena and Thomas both summoned their mana and began converting it into spikes of stone that floated above their palms. When both of them were ready they stepped into the open and launched their stone spikes at the same time. As the stones flew through the air they both prepared their second spells. Selena started making another earth spike while Thomas did something different.

The two stone spikes slammed into two of the snake kobolds and knocked them off of their feet. The remaining three hissed and began charging at the two of them. Thomas stepped in front of Selena to take the vanguard position while converting his mana into stone. In his hands, he held a thick shaft of stone with a massive hammer topping it. Sticking out of one of the hammers faces was a long spike. The massive hammer made of stone easily weighed two-hundred kilograms. In the real world wielding such a large and heavy weapon would simply be impossible.

Thomas laughed as he tightly gripped the three-meter-long handle and charged at the kobolds. As he ran another spike of stone flew past him and hit one of the charging kobolds knocking it off of its feet and sending it rolling away. With only two kobolds left within range, Thomas swung the massive hammer from his left to his right in a sweeping motion. He put as much of his power behind the blow as he could. The spike on the hammer pierced completely through the first kobold stabbing it through the side of its chest. The second kobold was a little too far back so the spike missed it. However, the pierced kobold and the head of the hammer still hit the second kobold. The sheer mass and weight of the hammer combined with the Power behind the blow sent it careening off to the side to slam into a wall.

The two kobolds that had been knocked down first had recovered and were charging at Thomas and Selena. A stone spike flew past Thomas and hit one of them knocking it back to the ground. The kobold gave out an angry hiss at being sent flying again. The kobold completely pierced through by the spike on Thomas's hammer was still struggling and hissing furiously. Even with its body completely pierced through it was still rather lively and extremely angry.

Thomas followed the momentum generated by his initial swing and let it spin him in a full circle. There was an old-school gaming phrase he felt fit this particular situation. Spin to win! With a laugh, Thomas followed the momentum of his hammer and aimed it at the last standing and charging kobold. With a sickening crunch, the head of the hammer slammed into the kobold and sent it flying into the wall to join its comrade.

A stone spike followed the kobold and slammed into it shortly after it hit the wall. The spike pierced through the kobold's battered body and pinned it to the wall where it continued to struggle and scream. Thomas slowed his momentum and lifted his hammer high above his head. The kobold stuck on the spike was still struggling and hissing furiously as the hammer reached its apex. With a huff of exertion, Thomas brought the hammer straight down with the spike pointed at the ground.

When the spike collided with the ground it crumbled and broke as Thomas stopped supplying it with mana. As the spike continued to crumble and break the distance between the floor and the face of the hammer grew closer and closer with the poor snake-headed kobold stuck in the middle. When the spike completely crumbled the head of the hammer slammed into the kobold with unbelievable force crushing it between the hammer face and the hard floor. The kobold couldn't even scream as the majority of its body was crushed into a paste.

As Thomas lifted his hammer a stone spike flew past him and knocked one of the snake-headed kobolds back down. Thomas ignored the ones that Selena kept tripping as he charged towards the wall where he'd sent two of the kobolds a moment ago. He ignored the one pinned in place as he swung his hammer horizontally at the second kobold. It had just managed to regain its footing when the heavy hammer slammed into its chest and crushed its body between the hammer face and the wall. There was a sickening crunch of bones shattering while the kobold spit up a mouthful of black blood. The force of the blow was enough to crack the wall behind the kobold.

Thomas pulled his hammer back and aimed at the other kobold pinned to the wall with the earth spike. Thomas pictured the earth spike as a nail and look he just happened to have a hammer to knock it into the wall! Thomas put force into his arms as he swung the hammer at the earth spike, he caught a glimpse of it starting to disintegrate back into mana, but it had lasted long enough to serve its purpose. The hammer slammed into the chest of the kobold squishing it between an unstoppable force and an immovable object.

The kobolds body crunched loudly as bones shattered and blood gushed from its mouth. Thomas turned away from the kobolds he'd crushed into the wall and looked at the remaining two in the room. Selena was doing a good job at keeping those two at bay but she couldn't fire her spell fast enough to keep them completely back. One of the kobolds was getting too close for comfort so Thomas targeted that once first. Thomas didn't even bother with a swing this time. Instead, he held the hammer out directly in front of his body like a spear or lance.

Thomas charged at the kobold using his full speed and rammed the top of the hammer into it. The kobold went flying away and rolled along the ground until it collided with the wall and came to a rough stop. Thomas dug his heels into the ground to bring his charge to a stop. The hammer wanted to follow its momentum and keep going but Thomas used his available might to keep it from getting out of hand. He turned to the last standing kobolds, though not the last alive, and held his hammer at the ready.

A stone spike flew past him and pierced into the kobold's chest while knocking it off of its feet. Thomas grinned and charged forward while lifting the hammer up over his head. When he was in range he dropped the hammer, literally, on the kobold and smashed its body into the ground. The kobolds choked on its blood as it died from massive blunt force trauma. Thomas turned once again and faced the last living kobold. It was struggling to pick its battered and broken body off of the ground. It didn't have the chance to succeed before a thin spear-like stone spike flew through the air and pierced its skull.

Thomas observed the room to make entirely sure all the kobolds had died before he released the hammer and let it disappear. He turned to Selena with a big grin on his face, "That worked a lot better than I thought it would!"

Selena rolled her eyes before saying, "Just collect the mana crystals. We'll rest after that then continue on."

Thomas shrugged his shoulders and went about his assigned task. At the first location of a kobolds demise, he found a small bundle of skin that had stuck around. His eyes practically glowed as he picked up the bundle and examined it. It was kobold hide! Finally, he'd gotten his first drop of kobold hide for the quest! Thomas held up the tattered piece of skin and grinned at Selena, "We've finally gotten the first hide drop!"

Selena glanced at it as she said, "It's about time. We should have had two by this point. We've been pretty unlucky finding those."

Thomas agreed with her while he stored the hide in his inventory and proceeded to pick up the remaining mana crystals, "Maybe its a sign of our luck turning around."

Selena glared at and scolded him, "Don't say such unlucky things!"

It was Thomas's turn to roll his eyes. Though he secretly offered up a prayer to RNGesus to let them get a few more drops to complete the quest at least once. If he'd known the drop rate would be so abysmal he would have skipped the quest and just sold the materials to someone else or kept them to use himself. Of course, there was always the chance that if he hadn't taken the quest he'd be swimming in kobold hides. That was the problem with random number generation for things like loot drops.

With the loot collected the two of them sat down to relax while Thomas recovered himself back to his peak. He was feeling a bit jealous of Selena's massive mana pool. Casting low-level spells didn't seem to take any effort for her at all, it was like she could cast non-stop all day long and still have plenty of mana left. There was also no telling how high her mana control was either. Fortunately, his mana control had grown a lot over the last day and a half and he was closing in on rank fifty in it. That still put him rather far behind the rest of the class though. He was sure someday he would exceed his classmates but for the time being, he was stuck playing catch up to them all.

Once he was fully recovered, they made their way toward the next room. They kept track of the paths they took so they could find their way back to the teleportation formation on this floor. Though if they did happen to find the entrance to the fifth floor they could just use the teleportation formation there to get out of the dungeon. In the next room, they repeated their previous performance and crushed a group of six kobolds. Thomas found that the massive hammer dealt a lot more damage to the kobolds when he pinned them between it and a hard surface. Just hitting a kobold still did a fair bit of damage but crushing them was deadlier by far.

They fought groups of kobolds in a few more rooms before they decided to start making the journey back toward the fourth-floor entrance. According to Selena, it didn't take all that long for the kobolds to respawn after being defeated so they would probably run into a few groups on the way back if they hadn't been defeated by another group of adventurers. A few of the rooms they passed were completely empty but they did end up fighting a few more groups together.

By the time they arrived back at the fourth-floor teleportation formation, they'd killed over fifty of the elite kobolds. Both of them had experienced a lot of growth in their magic skills. Thomas had gained what he considered to be a massive amount of experience and he was greatly looking forward to spending it all on his attributes. Thomas had also managed to get his earth magic over rank twenty-five, though not by nearly as much as his fire and wind magic. Tomorrow he would need to focus on his water magic and he intended to think of a few things tonight to put it to good use.

After checking out of the dungeon the two of them made their way towards the academy. Thomas decided to put up with 'subpar' food to spend some more time talking with Selena. Sadly, his grand plan was ruined when Selena left to take care of some things. He thought about heading back out to get some food in the city, but felt too lazy at the time and settled for the food in the cafeteria at the academy.

After the 'bland' meal he made his way to the dorm and entered the room assigned to him. Once inside he removed his clothing and armor to stretch out his wings. With his wings stretched out he felt much more comfortable than when they were suppressed inside of his back. With a sigh, he opened his character sheet and smiled at the large amount he'd managed to rake in over the day. It also worried him that he had earned so much experience. If he could earn this much in a day then so could any other player and players who had been focused on gaining experience would be leagues ahead of him in power at this point. He was really starting to realize just how far behind other players he was.

Thomas spent 4,900 of his 8,510 experience to boost his Power and Endurance up to 50 each. After that, he looked at his remaining 3,610 experience and tried to decide what he should do with it. His Agility was falling further behind at this point and he really wanted to increase it. At the same time, he wanted to boost his Power, Endurance, and even Magic attributes even higher. He only had four choices and yet it was such a hard decision for him! Thomas silently apologized to his neglected Agility attribute and spent 3,100 experience to increase his Magic attribute to 79. Just like that 8,000 experience disappeared into thin air.

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A note from thomasdarkrose

Path Notes: Reorganized the character sheet a little bit, specifically magic to make it easier for me, and probably you guys, to read.

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